Effects of monomer (AM) concentration, monomer/crosslinker (AM/MBAM) ratio and salt concentration on the thermal behavior of precursor gel and the properties of BeO nanopowder synthesized by polyacrylamide gel method were investigated. The decomposition process of precursor gel was also studied. The decomposition process of precursor gel is that, first, the extraction of free and crystallized water, and then the thermal degradation of polymeric network under temperature higher than 600 °C, final, the decomposition of nanoscale beryllium sulfate to BeO nanopowder. As the monomer concentration increases, the calcination temperature of precursor gel decreases due to more compact network structure of gel and thus smaller size of salt in nanocaves in gel. The average particle size of nanopowder reduces correspondingly. The AM/MBAM ratio also has significant effect on the thermal behavior of precursor gel and the average particle size of product. When the ratio of AM to MBAM is 6, the calcination temperature of precursor gel is the lowest, the average particle size of powders is the smallest, because the network structures of gel is the tightest and thus the sizes of salts in precursor gels are the smallest. As the AM/MBAM ratio deviates from this value, the network structures of gel becomes looser and thus the size of salt in precursor gel becomes larger, so the calcination temperature increases and the average particle size of powders becomes larger certainly. For the same reason, both the calcination temperature and the average particle size of powders increases with increasing the salt concentration. The synthesis conditions have no effect on the particle size distribution of the final product due to the natural random distribution of porosity in gel.

The lattice parameters, magnetic phase transition, Curie temperature and magnetocaloric properties for (Gd1−xTbx)5Si1.72-Ge2.28 alloys with x = 0, 0.15, 0.20 and 0.25 were investigated by X-ray powder diffractometry and magnetization measurements. The results show that suitable partial substitution of Tb in Gd5Si1.72Ge2.28 compound remains the first-order magnetic-crystallographic transition and enhances the magnetic entropy change, although Tb substitution decreases the Curie temperature (TC) of the compounds. The magnetic entropy change of (Gd1−xTbx)5Si1.72Ge2.28 alloys retains a large value in the low magnetic field of 1.0 T. The maximum magnetic entropy change for (Gd0.80Tb0.20)5Si1.72Ge2.28 alloy in the magnetic field from 0 to 1.0 T reaches 8.7 J/(kg·K), which is nearly 4 times as large as that of (Gd0.3Dy0.7)5Si4 compound (|ΔSmax| = 2.24 J/(kg·K), TC = 198 K).